This invention pertains to computer systems and other information handling systems and, more particularly, to an enclosure for disk drives into which mixed drive sizes, both slim and half high drives, can be inserted. This invention also pertains to a disk drive enclosure that has a removable backplane shuttle that can be easily replaced with a different shuttle and back plane, so as to easily adapt the enclosure to receive a different drive type, such as hot plug disk drives, non-hot plug drives, drives with SCSI interfaces, or drives with Fibre Channel interfaces.
Two well known industry standard disk drives sizes are the "slim" and "half high" drives. The slim or "1 inch" drive is actually 26.1 mm high, and the half high or "1.6 inch" drive is actually 42 mm high. As the industry matures, newer models of disk drives become available with greater storage capacity than the previous drive model of the same height. Similarly, a large capacity disk drive that was previously only available in the half high drive size, may later be available in the slim size drive. Thus, in the process of upgrading a computer system, or even at the time of the initial purchase of the system, there may be a need to intermix drives of different sizes in the same chassis. Accordingly, the invention described below is a disk drive system that includes a drive enclosure into which mixed drive sizes can be inserted in a manner in almost any order.
Disk drives not only vary in drive height, but also in the electrical and mechanical interface between the drive and the computer system. For example, disk drives may be of the "hot plug" type wherein drives can be inserted into and removed from the system by simply sliding the drive into or out of the drive chassis without the need to turn the system power OFF. Such "hot plug" drives usually have a well known SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) electrical interface, and typically use the well known SCA-2 standard connector. In this system, a mating connector is attached to the back of the drive chassis, so that the drive connector on the back of the drive mates with the chassis connector as the drive is fully inserted into the chassis. Another well known interface that is becoming more popular is the Fibre Channel standard, which can also be "hot plugged" into a drive chassis, but which uses a different connector than the standard SCSI connector. Drives can also be of the more conventional "non-hot plug" variety, in which a connector at the end of a flexible cable (the other end of which is connected to the computer system) is plugged into a mating connector on the drive.
Thus, there is a need for a user to be able to easily and inexpensively upgrade a computer system and, in particular, the disk drive chassis, to change the drive interface type, such as from non-hot plug to SCSI hot plug or Fibre Channel. Accordingly, the invention described below includes a disk drive chassis or enclosure that has a removable back plane shuttle, that can be easily and inexpensively replaced so as to change the type of drive that can be inserted into the enclosure and interfaced to the computer system. This invention is not only advantageous to the user, but also lowers manufacturing cost since only one drive enclosure is required for non-hot plug, SCSI and Fibre Channel drive types.